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Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.

That’s obviously not too likely to happen, but someone help me out here. My recollection is that one of the roadblocks to raising gasoline taxes back in the Carter/Reagan era was Saudi opposition. They figured it would reduce oil consumption and therefore reduce both oil prices and oil revenue. So this is basically the same position they’ve held for 30 years or so.

Is this true? My memory is vague on this. But I could swear that this is more of the same old same old, just updated for the 21st century.

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